anning of the trade by Denmark, effective in 1803, to the eventual acceptance of abolition by Portugal in 1836; the critical step being the outlawing of the trade by Britain, the principal slave-trading nation, in 1807. Legal abolition was, of course, by no means the same as effective suppression, and the trade continued illegally well into the nineteenth century, as long as there remained a market for slaves in the Americas (principally in Brazil and Cuba). The trans-Atlantic slave trade did not come to a total end, therefore, until the 1860s. While the slave trade was in decline, other forms of trade between western Africa and Europe were developing. Although various alternative commodities were exported, the new trade was principally in agricultural produce, especially palm oil and groundnuts, both used in Europe mainly as a raw material in the manufacture of soap (and later in the nineteenth century also palm kernels, used in the manufacture of margarine). The new trade thus reflected shifting patterns of demand in Europe, arising from the "Industrial Revolution." The modern economic relationship between western Africa and Europe, based on the exchange of African raw materials for European manufactured goods, thus had its origins in the era of the abolition of the slave trade, in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the slave trade being now illegal, trade in any other commodities, including palm oil and other agricultural produce, became known by contrast as "legitimate [or lawful] commerce." For modern historians, use of this term is clearly open to objection, especially to those studying these processes from the perspective of Africa rather than of Europe, because it is evidently Eurocentric--since the slave trade initially remained "legitimate" for the African societies involved in it, although now illegal for Europeans. Its use also tends to obscure the fact that trade in commodities other than slaves, including agricultural produce such as palm oil, existed even before the legal abolition of the slave trade. It remains, however, so firmly embedded in the historical literature that it is difficult to avoid, and is adopted in this paper on grounds of its familiarity. The transition from the slave trade to "legitimate" commerce has been a topic of major interest in the historiography of western Africa. The very first substantial academic monograph, based on detailed original research, on any aspect of African history, the late K. O. Dike's study of the Niger Delta in the nineteenth century, dealt centrally with this commercial transition, and more especially with its implications for the indigenous African societies involved in the Atlantic trade [Dike 1956]. Subsequently, the subject has continued to attract considerable attention from historians, with not only the accumulation of detailed case-studies, but also significant attempts at general synthesis. The best known and most influential among the latter has certainly been that by Tony Hopkins, in his pioneering survey of the economic history of West Africa [Hopkins 1973]; but other substantial contributions have been made by Ralph Austen [1970] and Patrick Manning [1986]. It would be out of place in this context to offer any sort of detailed survey of the development of the historical debate on the commercial transition, in part because I have made this attempt elsewhere [Law 1993]; but some of the general issues and controversies which have emerged in the course of the historical debate will be identified, and briefly discussed, in order to provide an orientation for future research in the field. PreliminariesThere are a number of difficulties in coming to terms with the historiography of the transition from the slave trade to "legitimate" commerce. One is, that any judgement on the significance of this commercial transition must necessarily imply also a parallel judgement of the significance of the impact of the slave trade, which i

Some common words found in the essay are:
West African, Partition Africa, Africa Europe, Howard Temperley, Domingo Martinez, European American, West Africa, Robin Law, Austen Smith, Western Sudanic, slave trade, palm oil, nineteenth century, legitimate trade, west africa, commercial transition, african societies, west african, slave trade legitimate, atlantic trade, african history, transition slave trade, abolition slave trade, journal african history, trade palm oil,
Approximate Word count = 6776
Approximate Pages = 27 (250 words per page double spaced)